TWO

Stardate 4757.4 (0924 hours)

In sickbay, well over a dozen people had come in for various injuries from the repeated jostling the Enterprise had taken. Chapel had called in Nurse Thomas, along with med techs Brent and Abrams. Additional help was required while the other duty nurse, Zainab Odhiambo, worked on burns. McCoy’s patient was an engineer who’d suffered multiple fractures of his arm when he’d unexpectedly been knocked off a catwalk. Simple enough to treat with a bone knitter, but time-consuming.

McCoy had been worried that the aftereffects of the distortion would continue, but it seemed as though they’d gotten the ship under control, letting the doctor work without interruption.

He was about halfway through the bone repair when Brent and Abrams came up to him, startling him. He was about to grumble at them, but their somber expressions stopped him. Something bad must’ve happened. McCoy switched off the regenerator. “What is it?”

“Coma,” replied Abrams, his trademark scowl deeper than normal. Brent nodded wanly. They worked together frequently, but McCoy had always thought them an odd pairing. Clifford Brent was a skinny, black-haired man who more often than not looked worried, whereas Robert Abrams was a stouter man, with thin, brown hair, whose face seemed molded by perpetual displeasure. Whether Brent was worried because Abrams was unhappy, or Abrams was unhappy because Brent was worried, McCoy had never been able to discover.

“How… never mind. Nurse!” McCoy shouted across the room. Both Chapel and Odhiambo turned toward him, looking expectant. “Zainab, please finish up here.” He turned to the injured engineer, who looked understandably dejected. “You’ll be in good hands.”

That done, he joined Brent and Abrams at the end of the ward, where a tall, thin man in a gold command uniform lay on a biobed. The face looked familiar—McCoy had passed the man in the corridors…. Bouchard. Wasn’t he from Neu-Stuttgart?

A glance at the life-sign monitor above the bed told McCoy all he needed to know: each indicator was depressingly low. The periodic bleeps that indicated respiratory and cardiovascular function were too widely spaced. “What happened to him?”

“We don’t know, to be honest,” Abrams said. “Apparently he just fell over.”

McCoy glared at him, but it was Brent who explained. “We really don’t know, Doctor. He works in phaser control, and his fellow officers brought him in just now. They said he collapsed in the middle of the room.”

“When we hit the distortion?” It wouldn’t exactly be difficult to do that, as McCoy well knew.

“Seems likely,” said Brent.

His colleague shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. They acted surprised; it couldn’t have been that.”

From the corner of his eye, McCoy spotted someone in blue approaching him—Chapel. McCoy was glad to have Christine and her insights at his side. He touched a control on the side of the monitor to skip to more specific readouts of the man’s brain. “Well, he’s definitely in a coma. Readings don’t point to any physical trauma.” He switched back to the summary display, about to give an order for a more detailed analysis when he noticed something wrong. “Neuron activity is dropping. He’s dying.” But not if he could do something about it. “I need a hypo of dalaphaline and a neural stimulator.”

The med techs ran off without more questions, and he inspected the monitor again. Without knowing what was actually wrong, he couldn’t bring the man out of the coma. All he could do was slow down Bouchard’s decline. If he was lucky.

What he needed right now was information—as much as he could get. He asked Chapel for the man’s medical records.

“Olivier Bouchard,” she said, reading off a data slate, “assigned to phaser control since transferring here. He’s been in sickbay twice before. Routine physicals. Nothing out of the ordinary. He’s never even been in a landing party. No previous brain injuries.”

A low grunt escaped McCoy. “I’m not surprised. It would’ve been too easy.”

The monitor bleeped loudly. Bouchard’s levels were now dangerously low. McCoy turned to demand where the devil Brent and Abrams had gotten to, and found that Brent was already hurrying over, hypospray in hand. “Dalaphaline,” he said, delivering it to McCoy.

In one swift motion, McCoy set it for five cc’s and injected it into Bouchard’s jugular. The drug would boost his nervous system and help his brain keep going. He looked up at the monitor, though he knew the change wouldn’t happen instantly. The readings stopped plummeting only for a few seconds before resuming their decline.

Chapel came up to him then, holding a whole tray of devices suited for brain analysis and repair that she’d taken over from Abrams. “Thank you,” McCoy said, grabbing the neural stimulator. Lifting Bouchard’s head gently with one hand, he slid the arc-like device underneath and positioned it around the man’s parietal bone. After a few seconds, it squealed to indicate a connection with the brain’s regulatory centers, and small lights on it began to flicker accordingly. The doctor pressed a button that would start the preprogrammed stimulus sequence.

Impatient, he counted to ten. Now this should have an immediate effect. McCoy glanced up at the monitor.

Nothing.

“If there’s no physical cause,” he said, increasingly worried, “then what’s slowing his brain down?”

“Infection?” suggested Brent. “Virus?”

“Can’t be,” McCoy said, “he hasn’t been off the ship. The only recent possibility of infection is C-15’s anatid flu, but biofilters would stop that from getting aboard.”

“Blood analysis?” Chapel asked, grabbing an empty hypospray.

McCoy nodded. “Worth a try—but we need to treat him immediately. This man is dying.” Desperate to try anything, he adjusted his hypospray. “Ten cc’s should do the trick.”

Still no reaction. He didn’t understand—what could be causing this? By all appearances, there was nothing wrong with the man.

You have no idea what to do, do you?

McCoy shook off the thought. The problem was that the dalaphaline took too long to work through the bloodstream. If injected into the brain—

It was insane. It was dangerous. He could remember reading journal articles about how terrible an idea it was.

But all he needed to do was give Bouchard a little nudge. He set the hyprospray for just two cc’s and reached out to place it against the man’s skull, where the frontal and parietal bones met.

This time, Chapel grabbed his hand. “Doctor, what are you doing? You can’t increase the dosage again,” she whispered sharply. “You’ll kill him!”

“He’ll die otherwise.” McCoy gestured up at the readouts with his free hand. They were as low as they could be without Bouchard being dead. “I’ve never seen this outside of one of Spock’s healing trances.”

Chapel didn’t let go. “He’s not Spock. No human being can take that much neural stimulation.”

“I do this, or he dies,” McCoy said, hoping to drive home their lack of options. With a short but vigorous shake, he freed his hand. Before Chapel could react, he had jabbed the hypospray through the tangle of Bouchard’s thick hair and into his skull.

The monitor began bleeping alarmingly. A few of the level indicators shot straight up. Over the course of his career, McCoy had probably done crazier things, but nothing with so uncertain an outcome.

“His brain’s going into overdrive.” Reproach coated Christine’s words.

And just like that, the bleeping stopped. The levels slid back down to where they were before—but no lower. They weren’t decreasing.

He’d done it! McCoy allowed himself a small smile. “Well, look at that. Perfectly fine.”

Chapel’s look was more than enough to indicate how she felt.

“Well, not fine,” McCoy admitted. “But stable. That’ll give us time to figure this thing out.”

Chapel locked eyes with him. “Yes, Doctor.”

For a young ensign fresh out of the Academy, a posting on a Constitution-class ship operating on the edge of explored space was a plum assignment. It still amazed Chekov that he’d been picked for the Enterprise, a ship with a name that went back centuries.

As a new officer, he’d worked in multiple departments to familiarize himself with all areas of the ship’s operation, intending to develop a specialization later. So far, he’d alternated primarily between the sciences and operations. Today, he was not only serving as the senior science officer of the Columbus, but also security backup.

As soon as the call from Captain Kirk had come in, Chekov had began running toward the part of the complex Yüksel had set off for, phaser in one hand, tricorder in the other. Chyort poberi! How could he have done something so stupid? He couldn’t get a fix on Yüksel’s communicator, nor did his tricorder detect any human life signs. There was a small amount of interference, but he didn’t think it was blocking all scans. There was nothing here to find.

He found himself becoming tangled up in vines, barely able to move. Captain Kirk’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Mister Chekov!” He couldn’t see the captain, but he sounded close.

“Over here, Captain!” he called back.

There was some rustling off to Chekov’s side, and moments later, Commander Giotto emerged from a bush, Captain Kirk and Ensign Seven Deers right behind him. Giotto immediately began surveying the area, while Kirk walked over to Chekov.

“Ensign,” he said, looking stern, “report.”

“Yüksel was looking at this part of the complex, while I was inspecting the launch pad.”

“Have you detected anything unusual?” asked the captain.

“No, sir,” said Chekov.

“You split up?” asked Giotto.

“Yes, sir,” said Chekov.

“Ensign, what did we say when we landed?”

“I know, sir. I am sorry, sir.”

“You might be sorry, but he’s—” Giotto cut himself off when the captain shot him a look.

“Right now,” said Kirk, “we need to focus on finding Yüksel. It sounded like he said ‘beneath the surface,’ so check for ways underground. Tricorders out, phasers on stun. Commander, you’re with me. Chekov, you and Seven Deers stick together.”

Chekov nodded. “You can count on me, sir. We’ll find him.”

“I hope so, Ensign,” said Giotto.

Did he have to rub it in? Chekov elected to ignore Giotto and took a look at his tricorder screen instead. “There are two areas of dense plant life ahead, sir. I believe that he would have gone to one or the other if he was—”

“Good thinking, Mister Chekov,” said the captain. “Giotto and I will take the far one. You and Seven Deers wait for Tra and Rawlins, then take the other.”

After about an hour, most of the casualties had been discharged, though McCoy had retained a couple to monitor their injuries. He’d ordered Odhiambo, Brent, and Abrams to get something to eat—Chapel too, but she said she wasn’t hungry. He didn’t believe her, but he had enough to worry about.

In his office, McCoy sat down with the readouts of Ensign Bouchard’s brain scans. It was a damned puzzle: no trace of a current infection, nor any other plausible cause, and yet the man was dying. What could be wrong? Since Chapel was so intent on helping, he had her check with phaser control to find out exactly what had happened.

He skimmed through a few dozen pages of data before a whiff of a very subtle perfume reached his nose. Chapel had returned and was standing in his office doorway. “Go ahead and sit down, Nurse.” She deserved some time off her feet; she looked at least as tired as he felt—and of course her shift had started quite a while ago. “What did you find out?”

“According to three witnesses, he fell over after the distortion. Everything was steady and clear. Bouchard was crossing the room when he suddenly collapsed.”

McCoy nodded. “That fits with his injuries. Some bruising on the shoulder from where he hit the floor—but nothing else.”

“Nothing in the cranial region at all?”

McCoy spun his monitor around to show Chapel Bouchard’s readouts. With M’Benga off on Mu Arigulon, McCoy didn’t have another physician to discuss medical conundrums with, but Chapel had been a promising bio-researcher before enlisting. He would have consulted her even if M’Benga had been on board. “Symptoms, but no cause,” she said. McCoy refrained from saying anything, letting her work through the issues herself. “No hemorrhaging, no brain injuries. Blood sugar normal, carbon dioxide normal. And yet he’s down to level four on the Glasgow scale.”

McCoy just nodded. “I don’t mind a good mystery, but this one’s a bit too much for my taste. The only medical problems listed in his record are things that happened to the whole crew, like the spores on Omicron Ceti III.”

“How could he come down with something this serious that affects no one else on the entire ship?” asked Chapel.

Doesn’t affect them yet. McCoy brushed the thought aside—no sense worrying about something that hadn’t happened. “There’s only one thing that stands out about him, and only in the context of a brain injury.” He was about to flip through the pages of medical data when the intraship squealed. Annoyed at the interruption, he jabbed the button. “Sickbay here.”

“Doctor, this is the bridge,” the voice of Lieutenant Uhura replied. “Lieutenant Sulu is taking the ship back up to warp speed.”

McCoy asked, “Could there be another of those space sandbars out there?”

“We’re proceeding forward at warp one,” said Uhura. “It’ll take a while to clear the zone of spatial distortion, but we should get through smoothly enough to avoid any ill effects.”

McCoy could hear the slight uncertainty in her voice. “Or at least that’s the theory, right?”

“Sulu decided it was the safest option. There are distortions both ahead and behind now.”

“What does the captain think of this plan?”

“There’s a lot of subspace interference, and I haven’t been able to punch through yet. Expect warp speed in another thirty seconds.”

“Well, good luck to Mister Sulu, then,” McCoy said as he flipped off the comm. “And to all of us.”

“You’re worried,” said Chapel.

“I’m always worried when one of my patients is dying from something I don’t know how to treat. And this time it’s even worse because we keep getting tossed about like a toy in a hyperactive child’s hands. Forward into unimaginable danger, that’s the Starfleet way.”

And your way, too, to be fair, even if for different reasons.

As if to mock him, the deck plates vibrated slightly, indicating that the ship had begun the transition to warp speed. All too aware of how the last warp jump had gone—McCoy’s back still hurt from the fall on the bridge—he gripped his desk as the ship accelerated…

And nothing happened.

“Well, that went better than last time,” he said, letting go—but slowly. “Maybe Sulu does know what he’s doing after all.”

Chapel gave him a disapproving look. “Doctor—”

“Yes, Nurse?” He wondered if she’d actually say it. He’d welcome it, certainly. Sometimes he needed someone to tell him to stop grumbling and get to work, and Jim wasn’t here to do that.

“Nothing,” she said. “Let’s get back to Bouchard.”

“Right.” McCoy pulled back the monitor, retrieving the page he wanted. “Take a look at this.” He turned the screen around to show her.

“Aperception quotient of twenty over a hundred and one, and a Duke-Heidelburg score of two hundred sixty? He’s an esper.”

“Right. Overall ESP rating of eighty-seven.”

“I don’t have much experience with human telepathy.”

McCoy turned the screen back around. “According to the report, he’s not powerful enough to be reading anyone’s mind on a conscious level, but he can pick up on things. This says it was first noticed because of his skill at board games in school. Always knew what his opponents were going to do, but never quite why.”

“Good attribute for a phaser officer.”

The typical human was no more telepathic than your average rock, but extrasensory perception had been scientifically documented in human beings in the early twenty-first century, and the number of recorded human espers had risen steadily ever since. Even so, they were still fairly rare.

“Could that be it?” asked Chapel. “Have we come into contact with any psychic phenomena?”

“Not that the science section has noticed,” said McCoy. “Just these spatial distortions.” The deck hadn’t moved at all this time, thankfully. It looked like the warp field was going to stay stable. “No energy fields, nothing. Our best hope is to keep him at his current level until we get to a starbase with better medical facilities.”

“I wish Mister Spock were here,” said Chapel, a little wistfully. “He could tell us if something was out there.”

McCoy snorted. “I doubt it. Vulcans are touch telepaths. He’d be just as oblivious as you and me.”

“He could do a mind-meld,” Chapel pointed out, almost stubbornly. “Go straight to the source.”

“And I bet he could also play us ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ on his damned Vulcan lute!” McCoy snapped. “We need to focus on what we can do, not what we wish we could do.”

“Right now, we can’t do anything!” Chapel forced the words out abruptly.

McCoy stared at her for a moment, not sure of how to respond. She was right, but he wasn’t prepared to admit defeat just yet. With a stab of his finger, the doctor snapped the monitor off, then stood up. “I’m going to go get something to eat. Biopsy Bouchard’s brain and get the sample to Harrison in the lab,” he said. “And when Thomas gets back, consider yourself off duty. Get some rest, Christine. That’s an order.”

She said nothing, giving only a hint of a smile.

They both headed out of his office, Chapel a few steps ahead of McCoy. His destination was the recreation room on this deck, which wasn’t far. McCoy walked slowly, wanting to spend some time alone with his thoughts. With the ship on Red Alert, most of the crew were at action stations, and those who were in the corridors were on urgent errands. Something must have damaged the power conduits in this section, because the lights were dim, giving everything a dusklike feel.

The doctor’s conscience was rearing up: he knew he’d been short with Chapel. Tired and stressed, McCoy was taking it out on her. And she—as usual—accepted it and did her duty.

No surprise—she’s out here because it’s her choice. Not because she feels this need to keep on moving, like you do.

Chapel had initially gone into space to find her missing fiancé, Roger Korby. Enterprise had located Korby two years ago, discovering that he’d been dead for years. And yet Christine had stayed on board, never once expressing to McCoy a desire to move on, or even to return to her career in bioresearch. She seemed settled in a way that he wasn’t.

He resolved to apologize to her once he got back to sickbay. Maybe he’d even bring her a sandwich.

After a few minutes’ slow walk deep in thought, he reached the rec room. It was almost noon. Normally the room would be full of officers and crew talking, eating, playing games, even singing. Today, there were a scant dozen in here, silent as they wolfed down their food. Eat and run.

Run. Ha! The Enterprise couldn’t afford to run. It did little more than crawl at warp one. McCoy hoped that they cleared this spatial distortion soon; at this speed it would take months to get to Mu Arigulon.

As he made his way to the food slots, the doctor passed a lieutenant with a familiar face whose name escaped him. Sitting at a table by himself eating mashed potatoes, the sandy-haired man nodded at McCoy, who nodded back. The man had been assigned to sickbay for a rotation. Connors.

McCoy continued to the slots. With something in his stomach, he might just be able to find the inspiration he needed—

The whole deck rose beneath his feet, vaulting him into the air, and the lights chose that moment to fail again. Before his mind could fully process the absence of gravity, McCoy plummeted back down, accompanied by the sounds of things crashing hard. His training kicked in, and he pulled his legs up to his chest in a tuck as he made contact with the deck once more. A jolt of pain ran through him. Doing his best to ignore it, the doctor rolled backward and then on his side.

He still couldn’t see, but the noises around him were terrible. Crashing, shattering, groaning.

Lots and lots of groaning. People in this room needed his help. No time to moan about his hurting backside; he had to get up and get going.

Spock was intrigued. Having finished their orbital scans, the Hofstadter’s crew had taken the shuttle into the atmosphere, to a large continent in the southern hemisphere. The inhabitants of Mu Arigulon V had vanished. Evidence to date ruled out a violent extinction, either natural or artificial. There were no signs of war or civil unrest, nor was there anything amiss in the environment, aside from a low level of atmospheric toxicity.

The absence of remains of any kind presented a puzzle. A mass exodus, while possible, required a planetary space industry that Mu Arigulon V lacked. There were no stations in orbit, no space elevators, no vast spaceports, nothing with the capacity to process the millions, if not billions, of beings who must have lived on the planet.

With all the knowledge at his disposal, Spock could not devise a theory that made use of all the available facts and explained where the natives had gone. It was a challenge, and he looked forward to discovering what had happened.

Karl Jaeger, a geophysicist specializing in meteorology, was seated behind Lieutenant Kologwe at navigation. Spock turned to face him. “Mister Jaeger,” he said, “do you have an explanation for this planet’s atmospheric toxicity?”

“I do, sir,” Jaeger said, handing Spock his data slate. “If you look at the readings we’ve taken, you’ll see that a major climatic shift took place about two centuries ago, perhaps a little longer, causing the temperature to rise.” Jaeger turned to M’Benga and the others seated behind him. Spock listened while studying the data. “Evidence of this can still be seen everywhere. Levels of heavy metals and atmospheric pollutants, especially polyaromatic hydrocarbons such as compounds of the benzopyrene family, are just below toxicity threshold for most humanoids. Several decades ago, this place must’ve been deadly. Thankfully, the air’s clean now and the planet’s cooled down again. Sir, if you require a detailed breakdown of what happened, I’ll have to analyze precipitation layers at one of the polar ice caps.”

Spock considered this. “Thank you, Mister Jaeger. I’ll add it to our list of objectives.”

“Sir …” Jaeger hesitated for a moment. “There’s one other thing.”

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Windspeeds are picking up, and cloud formations are growing across this entire continent. All indications are that we’re in for a storm.”

“I am aware of this, Mister Jaeger.”

“But it doesn’t make any sense. We’re talking about a big storm—one that could cover this part of the southern hemisphere. But when we were in orbit, there was no sign of it: no low-pressure system, no inversion layer. There still isn’t. But now it’s on its way.”

Spock momentarily considered that Jaeger was not accounting for the idiosyncrasies of the weather of a new planet, but he immediately dismissed the idea. The lieutenant had too much experience. “Thank you, Mister Jaeger.” Spock was confident that the shuttle’s shields would minimize the effects of any adverse weather.

He added the weather dilemma to his internal list of conundrums, tasking a small part of his mind to its resolution. “Mister Scott,” he said, rising from his seat, “report on the satellite we recovered.”

The engineer was hunched over the strange mauve-colored device at the back of the shuttle, having unsealed a panel to access its innards. “There are some highly sophisticated electronics in here, Mister Spock.” He pulled his hand out of the device, dislodging several wires. “Plus a fusion reactor only as big as the palm of your hand.”

“Have you determined the device’s purpose yet?”

“Aye. Projecting energy,” he said, picking his tricorder up off the deck, “but I canna tell what kind of energy. It’s been inert for at least a decade. The only bits I can be sure about are its thrusters; it’s got a powerful reaction control system.”

Spock nodded. The satellite could be nearly anything: a weapon, a shield generator, a tractor emitter, even a surveillance sensor. “Would it be possible to activate the device?”

“Aye.” Scott peered back into its innards, his eyes jumping between the device and the readout on his tricorder. “Everything seems intact inside.” His facial expression transformed in a way that Spock knew humans called “lighting up.” “I’d like to take a crack at it if you don’t mind, once we land. Wouldn’t be safe in here.”

“Indeed, Mister Scott. Once our aerial survey comes to an end, you may proceed.”

Scott leaned back to sit on the deck, against the aft wall of the shuttle. “Mister Spock, shouldn’t we be helping find Yüksel?” His face distorted in a portrayal of what could only be termed exasperation. “The poor lad is out there somewhere.”

“The captain has ordered us to continue our survey for now. There is little that a second shuttlecraft could do that the first cannot.”

Scotty nodded and began looking at his tricorder readouts once more. Spock recognized that he was not entirely satisfied, but knew better than to press the issue. He returned to the pilot’s seat to examine the surface beneath the Hofstadter. It was a large expanse of wooded land dotted with mountains that grew larger the farther the shuttle flew. Rivers cut patterns into the terrain, a flood plain of times long past, and they eventually converged into one wide torrent that rushed on toward a high cliff.

A light began bleeping on Kologwe’s controls. “Incoming transmission from the Columbus party, sir.”

“On speakers, please, Lieutenant.”

The voice of Captain Kirk crackled from the speakers. “Spock, do you read me?”

“Perfectly, Captain.”

“Do you know anything about this interference we’re starting to pick up?”

Spock checked his controls. There was indeed static in some of the scan results, though it was not pronounced enough to trip any alerts. “A negligible amount was reported by the initial probe of the planet, but I have only just detected the increase myself, Captain. Is it impeding the function of your tricorders?”

“A little. Could it be related to the distortions that Uhura reported?”

“Unknown, Captain.” Several minutes after Yüksel had sent his distress call, the landing parties had received a transmission from the Enterprise, indicating that it had encountered a spatial distortion, but would be continuing to Mu Arigulon at a slightly slower pace. “The data that the Enterprise sent were not comprehensive.”

“Raise them again.”

“Captain, do you want us to come and help you look for Yüksel?” broke in Scotty.

“Negative, Scotty. Right now I want to know more about this planet. And what happened to its inhabitants.”

“Understood, Captain,” said Spock. “I will contact you if we acquire further information.”

“Good. Be careful.”

Spock raised an eyebrow. It seemed an unnecessary reminder. “Of course, Captain. Hofstadter out.”

He readied a transmission to the Enterprise and sent it, but there was not an immediate response. If the level of subspace interference was higher near the starship’s position, there could be a time delay of up to six minutes. He returned his attention to the Hofstadter’s path.

The shuttle followed the river until it shot over the cliff edge, thundering down in a waterfall so high that when it arrived at the bottom it shattered into an all-enveloping mist. Ignoring the expressions of awe coming from the others, Spock took the shuttle in a slow descent down to the lowland, still following the river. The former inhabitants of Mu Arigulon V appeared to have needed or wanted access to water; they had constructed their population centers near bodies of water. This much the survey probe had established.

“Mister Spock,” Kologwe said, turning to him. Her normally smooth and expressionless features evidenced excitement, indiscernible to any but him. “I’m getting a reading here.”

“What kind of reading, Lieutenant?”

“There’s an energy source dead ahead of us. It’s weak, but definite.”

Spock was surprised to pick up an energy signature, after having spent the better part of half a day first in orbit and then in low-altitude flight with sensors constantly in active mode. “Intriguing. Well done, Lieutenant. We shall investigate.” Spock altered the Hofstadter’s course, simultaneously increasing speed.

Attempting to retrace the route Yüksel would have taken, Kirk and Giotto had followed the readings of freshly broken vegetation, following the trail to a gigantic tree growing in the middle of a structure. Giotto helped Kirk drop through a hole in the floor into the basement, made possible by years of collapse and decay.

Kirk grunted as he stood up. “Careful, sir,” Giotto called down. “I don’t want you disappearing, too.”

The captain smiled. The security chief was perhaps overzealous sometimes, but he got the job done. “Give me your flashlight!” he shouted back up.

Giotto dropped it right into Kirk’s hands. The captain waved it around the room. There were large pieces of machinery, but none of them seemed to be on. The walls were lined with the same large semicircles as they’d seen on the surface. He began walking around the base of the tree, keeping an eye on the walls of the chamber. The dirt crunched beneath his feet.

“Sir?” Giotto called down into the hole. “Do you want me to come down there?”

“Hold on, Comm—” Kirk was interrupted by a glint of bright silver metal near one of the walls. He pointed his beam right at it.

It was a Starfleet-issue flashlight. “I’ve found something!” he called. “Yüksel’s light.” He began picking his way over toward it.

“I’m coming down.” A few moments later, Kirk heard Giotto hit the dirt and walk in his direction.

Kirk squatted on the ground next to his find, the only sign that Yüksel had been here. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands, but aside from scuff marks from landing on the gravel floor, there was nothing about it that told him anything. “‘Beneath the surface,’ his message said.” Kirk looked over at the large semicircles on the wall. “Those are doors, right?”

Giotto had his tricorder out. “Yes, sir. There are long tunnels behind each of them.”

Kirk handed Giotto his light back and turned Yüksel’s on, walking over to the semicircle to get a closer look at it. Its surface was black and featureless, completely smooth. “What happened down here, Commander? If he was attacked—what did it?”

“We haven’t even seen any signs of large animal life.” Giotto was slowly turning, shining his light on every corner of the room. “If only Chekov had stayed with him—”

“Then we’d likely be missing two men now instead of one,” interrupted Kirk. He flipped open his communicator. “Kirk to Spock.”

“Spock here, Captain.”

“Any word from the Enterprise yet?” The easiest solution to this problem would be using the starship’s powerful sensors to probe the planet from orbit. If Sulu brought her up to maximum warp, she could be here in just over twelve hours, not two days.

“The only signal I have received is my own, approximately six minutes, thirty seconds after transmission. An unknown phenomenon is reflecting all subspace communications.”

“Dammit, Spock,” hissed Kirk, “I need the Enterprise. What’s Sulu doing to my ship?”

“Unknown at present, sir. We have, however, located a powerful energy source and are en route.”

“What is it?”

“Also unknown, sir.”

“Well, find out.”

“Affirmative. Hofstadter out.”

Kirk turned to Giotto. “I’m not wasting any more time trying to find a way to open those things. Half-power should do it.”

Giotto nodded, and both men drew their phasers from their belts, turning the dials up. Kirk momentarily felt a twinge at the idea of destroying an ancient alien artifact. The captain stepped back from the semicircle he was examining, and Giotto stepped over to join him, training his weapon on it.

“Fire!”

Bright blue beams lanced out from their phasers, striking the center of the door and sending sparks flying. The light burned brightly, but the door remained the same black color.

“Full intensity!” Kirk twisted his dial all the way up, and the pitch of the phaser increased drastically, as did the light it produced. But despite the fact that the noise made him clench his teeth, nothing was happening.

Kirk released his finger from the trigger. “That’s enough. I’m calling Chekov and the others down here—we’re finding a way in.”